Former minister points to 'incompetence' in NHS(UK healthcare: +60% money -4% service)

Guardian ^ | 03/03/10

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Former minister points to 'incompetence' in NHS

Service was given 'too much money too quickly', and strategy blamed for trusts' severe budget shortfalls

A nurse checks his fob watch as the government announces proposals to allow patients to shop around for treatment. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images

The management of the NHS has been characterised by "monumental incompetence" driven by "too much money given too quickly", which has left some trusts facing severe budget shortfalls, according to a former Labour health minister.

Lord Warner, who served in Tony Blair's administration, said he was not surprised by the tide of red ink in the primary healthcare trusts, which buy care on patients' behalf. He said that in the 21st century the NHS had received more money than it knew what to do with. "It was like giving a starving man foie gras and caviar. The NHS has not managed that largesse well".

Warner was behind the push for market-based reforms who by his own admission lost the fight with Gordon Brown, then chancellor, over how to make public services in health run more efficiently. "Gordon reverted to the traditional Labour line in health, which was to support the unions who are the paymaster of the Labour party in the runup to the election," he said.

But this meant putting off vitally needed change and left a gaping "productivity gap". "Between 1997 and 2007 NHS inputs – by that I mean cash – went up by 60%," he said. "But NHS outputs went down by 4%. Two thirds of the money we put in just went into pay."